The Every

by Dave Eggers

After the pandemics, handshakes were medically fraught—and, many thought, aggressive—but no one substitute-greeting had been agreed upon. Dan chose to tip an imaginary top hat in Delaney’s direction. Delaney offered a brief bow.

Like a growing majority of tech innovations, the invention and proliferation of Samaritan, an app standard on Everyphones, was driven by a mixture of benign utopianism and pseudofascist behavioral compliance.

Disobedient was a recently favored word, replacing mutinous, which had replaced insurgent, which had replaced disruption/disruptor.

Capital-P Play was last year’s management theory, following multitasking, singletasking, grit, learning-from-failure, napping, cardioworking, saying no, saying yes, the wisdom of the crowd > trusting one’s gut, trusting one’s gut > the wisdom of the crowd, Viking management theory, Commissioner Gordon workflow theory, X-teams, B-teams, embracing simplicity, pursuing complexity, seeking zemblanity, creativity through radical individualism, creativity through groupthink, creativity through the rejection of groupthink, organizational mindfulness, organizational blindness, microwork, macrosloth, fear-based camaraderie, love-based terror, working while standing, working while ambulatory, learning while sleeping, and, most recently, limes.

Dan asked, sitting on an enormous rubber mushroom. Delaney sat opposite him, on a llama made of recycled plastic fibers.

“This was your plan, Del. You’ve been planning it for years now. You can’t just give me your dream. Plans for subterfuge and overthrow are not transferable.”

“You never know. The weird gaps in people’s knowledge now. No ten people know the same ten things.

she remembered her early years as taking place outdoors to the soundtrack of rushing water.

How did I not put that all together?” Delaney had no idea. The gaps in what was obvious and what Wes saw were often baffling.

“Because she fears doing anything wrong, she’s intellectually celibate. Never had an original idea.”

And for a while the users, though feeling wary and burned by the series of revelations, looked askance at their smart speakers, wondering if the tradeoff was actually worth it. On the one hand, their private family conversations were being recorded and stored offsite for unknown future use by a trillion-dollar private company with a limitless litany of privacy violations. On the other hand, they could find out the weather without having to look out the window.

“How is freedom best exercised?” he asked. He hadn’t looked down at his screen. This seemed to be an improvised question. “Willfully,” she said. “Irregularly. Through the refutation of custom. The breaking of patterns. The rational flouting of irrational rules. Keeping secrets. Being unseen. Solitude. Social indifference. Fighting ill-wrought power. Irreverence for authority. Moving without limit or schedule through the day and the world. Choosing when to participate and when to withdraw.”